[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 6 points 16 hours ago

I used Linux in university also, and actually had LESS problems than my classmates - a few of our textbooks came with "homework" versions of industry software (made by the textbook writer, just coded to be good enough to learn some basic concepts and work with some provided example files) and for reasons unknown to man and beast, most of them worked better on wine than on Windows natively - for one, the "submit" button was basically off-screen on Windows but placed where you'd expect on wine, on another trying to connect to machines was a HUGE pain.... Except the Linux networking interface had no issues haha.

I only switched because the forced upgrade to Windows 8 ate my first year midterm essays and I never forgave it.

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 56 points 3 weeks ago

And 85% of medical isotopes come from Canada!

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 65 points 3 months ago

I had a nervous breakdown in university, where I had gotten a huge, highly selective merit scholarship under strict performance conditions. I had thrived - relatively speaking - in a traditional classroom, because it was so structured. I murdered tests because it was quiet, structured, and distraction free. Homework was hit or more frequently miss, I struggled socially, and although clearly not malicious my teachers gently noted that my classroom behavior could be a challenge "to the other students' learning", but I was brilliant enough at tests and classwork and highly motivated by my toxic dysfunctional house to get out that I had successfully gotten my golden ticket.

University, where you had to set and enforce your own structure? I couldn't cope. I got a lot of flack on "you never learned to study", "you just don't know how to do really hard things, now that it isn't easy for you". I missed deadlines for administrative work, I forgot assignments, I struggled to remember the instructions to follow them.

I remember a day just before I hit that wall - I was in the study cubicles in the library, trying to work on some critical midterms for a challenging course. I only had the cubicle rental for a set amount of time and needed to meet my long-suffering roommate for a ride home at a given time - they were also very busy and I was not helping their life by being late to everything constantly. I checked the time to see how much longer I had and went back to writing, but realized I hadn't actually internalized the time so I checked again. Within 10 seconds I couldn't remember how long I had again, so I checked again - tried really hard to remember! Said it out loud, was shushed by my cube neighbor. Looked up at them - forgot time. Checked again, pen to paper to write it down - I had forgotten already.

Frustrated as hell, I got up to get a drink at the water fountain, hoping the walk and the water would "clear my head". At this point I had forgotten I even needed to check the time. I sat back down at my cubicle, picked up my pen to start writing for this midterm, began brainstorming -- I was at the water fountain again, although I didn't remember choosing to go or any of the not-short walk there. Puzzled but not surprised, I thought "I must have been thirstier than I knew", and made sure to get a BIG drink this time. Walked back to the cubicle. Pick up pen. "Focus". Deep breath. Consider the themes of --

I am back at the water fountain. Hand to heaven I did not choose to be here. I do not NEED to be here. I am not thirsty. I return back to my cube without getting a drink because "I am not rewarding myself for wasting time".

I walk back to the wrong cubicle because I have forgotten the cubicle number I rented.

I end up back at the water fountain trying to remember my cubicle by retracing my steps - it's not like I haven't walked that path half a dozen times today already, how did I just now forget??

I get another drink. I finally make it back to my cubicle. I start working on the midterm again, but in the-reading the prompt sheet realize I have not been working on the prompt I actually signed up for this whole time - not that I have written even a paragraph yet. Frustrated to tears after years of this constantly and feeling like a failure, my phone buzzes angrily - somehow during all of this NOTHING, 4 hours came and went, and I am now late to meet my roommate, who is threatening to leave without me.

When I finally finish the paper, it is submitted by my professor for a "best paper of the semester" award and places second.

2 months later, seeing the campus psychiatrist after my mental breakdown due to "overwhelming anxiety", he listens to me for 45 minutes. He promises we will talk about the anxiety, which is very real and distressing, but also maybe I should consider this other thing. He takes a paper from his filing cabinet, folds over the top so I can't see what the title is, and presents me with a questionnaire asking me to rate myself from one to five on every moral failing that has ever disappointed and frustrated me and everyone who claims to love me. I am sobbing within 5 questions -- there is a name for this?? This is treatable?? I'm not just a lazy failure?? No, I have no idea what the title of this questionnaire would be.

"Adult ADHD Assessment".

Most people, it turns out, DON'T have a childhood nickname of "space cadet" or "nutty professor", can finish a sentence in a linear fashion, can sit relatively still, don't interrupt their psychiatrist 5 times in 20 minutes, and can remember what they have and have not discussed in a 45 minute time window. It also turns out that being a high achiever in a strict scholarship program as a member of the honors college in a challenging major at a prestigious university with "the WORST case of ADHD I have ever seen" is not super easy, although I can't imagine why.

Within days I am on my first day of Adderall, although I am told not to expect much at this dose. I almost forget to take it, but my roommate forcefully reminds me as we drive, and I never remembered to take the prescription out of my bag so I still have it. I walk the 15 minutes from the lot to the library.

As I pass the student union building next to the library, I realize something absolutely insane - I know where I am right now, and I remember getting here. Not that I remember every leaf or face I passed, but it isn't like the water fountain where I only know that I went somewhere because I am now there. Despite having the same routine every day of walking to the library to rent my cubicle first thing, I often "overshoot" and accidentally walk past it and head to the buildings for my major without getting my rental and storing my bag, usually only remembering where I am and what I'm doing once I go to open the door of my first class and see that it isn't my class in there yet - I'm supposed to be studying in the library for a few hours more.

But not on Adderall - on 10 whole mg of Adderall I successfully went right where I was supposed to be on purpose at the right time and I remembered doing it, and it was so unfamiliar an experience that I cried on a bench in the quad about it.

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 37 points 10 months ago

The fact that he was repeatedly moving them away from each other while checking that they were still asleep, plus finally returned drunk??

"They were staying up too late and I wanted to go to bed" my ASS

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 year ago

Mind you these are companies making billions a year in profits, while reddit reported a loss of 91 million in 2023

So Reddit made a respectable profit in 2023 of 102 million, but Spez felt he was worth twice the entire margin and 2-4 times what even established tech CEOs typically make. If he was happy with the paltry CEO pay that poor companies like Microsoft offer /s, Reddit would have posted ~ 50 mil in profit?

Listen, I'm not a financial expert, but how is that not some form of fraud?? My company posted a MUCH smaller loss (in one region!) than that and we had auditors crawling through our assholes looking for the why. Every transaction was looked at, every expense had to be justified, people lost their jobs, one is under federal investigation!!, and key leadership got busted back down to frycook - and rightfully so.

You're telling me the board (or ownership??) hired someone at arguably quadruple market rates and double their expected yearly margin to make them profitable and then posted basically a 9 figure loss that could be entirely contained in that one transaction....and that somehow isn't some sort of Trump-NY-Esque business valuation defrauding of their existing investors/tax fraud?

"Oops we made zero money for you guys last year because we actually made sure to pay all of it and more to this one guy, more money pls" right before an IPO?

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 27 points 1 year ago

Peak orphan crushing machine

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 36 points 2 years ago

Many of your points are good, but 4 is pretty weak. I have left my personal laptop for 20 minutes to come back and find that the cat has put me into airplane mode, opened a hexadecimal calculator I didn't know I had, written a complain to Microsoft that only didn't send because of airplane mode (error popup and all), opened my family recipes, edited my family recipes to include actual text-symbol emojis among other garbage, and recorded the whole thing as a...... Gamer Clip???

She does this routinely.

I disable my work laptop keyboard before I even LOOK away from it, I don't want to find out how much damage she could push to production.

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 84 points 2 years ago

Holy cow I thought the screenshots currently on this post were the whole thing and I was horrified??

No, the screenshots are like, half?? THE TAME HALF????

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 37 points 2 years ago

To be fair, Baby Boomers are actually statistically the reason divorce rates are so high, and also why they've been going down recently.

Not trying to be insulting, just wanting to speak about the statistics I've read, so I'll try to use the full generation title to distinguish.

Speaking about the generation as a general group, Baby Boomers had many marriages and many divorces per capita. Your stereotypical "on my fifth wife" dudes were Baby Boomers and were a disproportionate percentage of marriages that ended in divorce - basically "Divorce Georg".

From a statistics perspective, a large part of the reason divorce rates are going down these days are because as people get older, they tend to settle down and have less energy for those kind of antics basically, and the rate of Baby Boomers marriages and divorces was slowing down in response - with other generations being pretty much stable.

So on that level I'm not particularly surprised that those attitudes towards divorce are still affecting them in old age. It does pose interesting questions for our elder care infrastructure (or lack thereof) though.

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 years ago

This is honestly a good question - I'd be more interested to see it as a percentage of their age group than a count.

[-] AThing4String@sh.itjust.works 85 points 2 years ago

Bed sheet suspenders. Dumb problem, stupidly cheap, horribly made, and ABSOLUTELY fixed the friggin sheets being yanked off the corner of the bed twice a night by my tumble-dry-medium sleeper of a spouse.

When they finally broke after almost 2 years I sewed some that'll last 10 years and I don't regret them at all.

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AThing4String

joined 2 years ago